The emblematic electric vehicle manufacturer is in the viewfinder of the American road safety agency for the malfunctions of its automated driving system.
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At the end of a faster year who saw its production doubling to graze the million of cars, Tesla must face the hardening of the conflict which opposes it to the American road safety authorities. For several months, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the US Federal Road Safety Agency, multiplies investigations and warnings about the controversial automated driving system, called Autopilot, which equips vehicles. The ELON MUSK firm.
In November, it was seized of the complaint of a Californian conductor of a model Y. The driving assistance system would – despite its attempts to resume control – engaged the car on the wrong way, provoking a frontal collision, without being injured. This motorist used the most elaborate version of the software, called “Full Self-Driving”, entrusted to selected clients to play the role of beta-tester.
In August, NHTSA had already launched investigations after identifying a dozen collisions (which did 17 wounded and a death) involving Tesla having hit security vehicles stationed on the side. side. Another point of friction, a functionality to reveal video games or surf the Internet via the vast screen of the dashboard while the car is moving. A function finally disabled at the end of December on the injunction of the authorities.
Framing the experiments
According to the NHTSA, which has obtained the 12,000 vehicle recall due to the reporting of unexpected braking (“ghost braking”, phenomena that also concern other manufacturers), Tesla goes too far, too fast and bypass the procedures regulations. To be allowed, it recalls, the tests of autonomous vehicles must respond to a protocol providing for the presence of a driver. On January 7, the state of California, which initially had given his downstream in Tesla, announced that he would reconsider this green light, evoking the dissemination on social networks of videos highlighting a series of malfunctions.
This iron arm intervenes that, since Joe Biden’s function, in January 2021, the road safety policy has evolved in the United States, where road mortality has steadily increased ( 36,680 killed in 2020, the worst assessment since 2007, and more than 20,000 in the first six months of 2021). From now on, the government wants to frame the experiments more strictly.
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